Winds of Change
by NeonBlue27
Summary: A shiny female Riolu named Talu has been hunted all her life by a group of humans. Her only two friends in this chase are Esho, a shiny male Furret, and a lone male Lucario who has agreed to train her to control her vast skills in the power of aura.
1. Shut Up!

The wind did not blow. The trees did not shake. The grass didn't even seem to grow.

Then, the two figures leapt at each other. The smaller of the two figures sent blow after blow at the other, only to have each parried. This was to be expected; after all, she was fighting her sensei in a training bout.

When the two figures split apart, they could be fully recognized. The smaller was a Riolu, a bipedal dog-like Pokemon that appeared to be wearing a mask with a drooping growth on either side. While most Riolu were blue with black on their torsos, legs, and "masks," as well as a bit of yellow fur around their necks and a small silver blade on the back of each hand, this one had yellow as its main color instead, with blue replacing the yellow of her neck fur. Despite all these differences caused by the fact that she bore the "shiny" gene, she still had those same fiery eyes that showed the true passion of her race.

She looked up into the eyes of her sensei. Being a Lucario, he looked pretty much like a larger version of the Riolu he had once been. The main differences were the yellow fur on his torso, as well as the black stripe below that fur and the two black rings on his shoulders, the black marks on his paws, and the third spike jutting out from his chest. His "mask" also bore one more of the "growths" on each side of it.

The Lucario spoke softly.

"You did well…but once more you let your emotions control you."

The Riolu looked taken aback. "W-what do you mean," was all she could say.

"I mean, you tried to draw strength from anger alone. You have made this mistake in the past, and as long as you do, it will prevent you from reaching your full potential." He knew he was trying the young one's patience, but there was no kinder way of putting it.

True to his thoughts, the Riolu was obviously annoyed at his words. "And how would you know?"

The Lucario chose this point to raise his voice. "Do not ask questions you can answer yourself! Riolu have very high levels of aura, I can read you like a book. You train only for revenge. I agreed to help you but I can only do so much as long as you so foolishly hold on to these feelings!"

The Riolu was past the point of no return. Her personality was quite an unstable one and hearing her teacher speak so negatively about her and yet be so right was too much for her. "Shut up! You don't know what I've been through! You wouldn't be so quick to judge if you had seen it!"

"And what makes you think that? Those humans are hard on all wild Pokemon, especially the more coveted ones, such as us Lucario and Riolu!"

"But I'm just a kid, and look at what I've been through, all for my rarity! A female Riolu is rare enough, but having to be shiny too makes it like all the Mew in the world and Arceus got together and cursed me personally!" The unstable emotions she was channeling were causing her to lose control of her proper judgment, and a sphere of blue energy had formed in her left palm. It was a manifestation of her life energy, her aura.

"Don't bring those who had no power over this into it, you should consider yourself blessed. There are many who would kill to be you."

"Well I would kill not to be me! Stop trying to make it seem like it's not as bad as I think, because it is! You don't know what my life is like!" With those words, she loosed the sphere at her teacher, letting go of any tiny spark of judgment she had had before, then turned tail and ran.

The Lucario made no move to follow her, he didn't even bother to dodge or block the attack. It didn't hurt much anyways. She would never be able to inflict major pain on him, because he was one of her few friends. And besides, she was wrong. He did know what it was like. He could read it in her aura, and in her attacks. In every step, in every strike, and in every dodge, he could read a bit more into what had happened, and his ability to read her aura only opened up further to him the story, conveying it to him better than any great storyteller could even remotely hope to.


	2. Your Power's Limit

It had started less than a year ago. Nine moons was closer to it. The Riolu had been on the run from humans, and being little more than a pup at the time, only just then coming to the end of her first year of life, she had been scared.

The ones chasing her had been clothed in odd white and black materials. These men belonged to a criminal group that specialized in hunting down rare Pokemon, especially the shiny ones.

Finally, they had had her cornered. Being trapped between a large wall of rock and these men and their captured Pokemon, she had had nowhere to go.

Then she had heard a voice calling out to her.

"Psst…"

It had been little more than a whisper, the owner not wanting to give away his location, but it had been loud enough for her to notice.

"Hey, you, over here!"

That time she had heard him clearly. Looking to her left, she was surprised by what she saw. It was a Furret, a long, weasel like Pokemon. This wasn't so strange, as Furret were fairly common, but his coloration was out of the ordinary. Most Furret were tan in color on most of their body and the tips of their ears, with chocolate-colored markings making up the ringed stripes on their body and the hood-like patch on their head. This one, though, was a light lavender color with darker pink markings.

What were the chances she would run into another 'shiny' Pokemon? She had no time to think about the matter though, as the men had drawn closer in her moment of distraction. The Furret had been gesturing towards a nearby cave, and she was quick to follow him in. Thankfully, it had turned out to be too small for the men to pursue.

Later on the Furret had introduced himself as being called Esho, at which point he had found out that the name of the one he had saved was Talu.

These two would go on to become the greatest of friends, helping each other in fleeing from the humans who would do them harm. The greatest of their problems would not come for another eight moons.

* * *

_Talu and Esho ran through the woods, being closely pursued by the same men they had so long ago evaded, as well as a quite well sized pack of Linoone, Pokemon similar to Furret although burlier and being of a tan color with brown marks running along their bodies rather than around them. The men kept these Linoone with them for hunting purposes. It was worth noting that two of these Linoone were shiny, having orange markings instead of the regular brown._

_Eventually, Esho and Talu got separated, and once more Talu was in danger of being caught. She was shifting between running and beating off the Linoone that jumped at her, and it was beginning to tire her out. The Riolu wouldn't be able to keep it up much longer, and she knew it. _

_As both of the Shiny Linoone jumped at Talu, preparing to strike her down and leave her for their trainers, Esho was finally able to make his way back to the scene. He acted instantly, stepping between Talu and the Linoone, and preparing an attack of his own. As they came down on him, Esho let loose with his Fury Swipes attack, giving each of them several quick slashes. Their undersides were exposed to him due to the way they had tried to pounce, and as a result he was easily able to knock them aside._

_However, in dealing with these two, Esho had distracted himself from the third Linoone approaching him from behind. This Linoone was quite noticeably larger than the others, and it had hung back from the pack for most of the chase. Talu noticed the Linoone approaching, but barely even had time to give out a small scream before it gave Esho a very harsh slash across his side with its claws._

_Esho was knocked back from the force of the blow. Slamming into a tree, he slid down to the ground and laid there, the wounds from the attack clearly visible. _

_Talu was frozen in terror. Esho, her greatest friend and partner, had been struck down. Surely now there was no hope for them. They would be caught, and they would be sold off to whoever bid the highest. _

_It was a bout of loud laughter that brought her back to her senses. One of the men had stepped forward and retrieved a Pokeball from somewhere within the folds of his clothes, and he was preparing to use it on Esho._

No. She couldn't allow that to happen. Throwing caution to the wind, she dashed forward, focusing as much of her energy as she could into an attack and shouting at the top of her lungs in clearly audible human speech, "Get away from him, or I'll kill you where you stand!" 

_As it is, Lucario are one of the few Pokemon who can learn to speak in the human tongue. All it had taken for the young Riolu to achieve the same thing was the boost from the surge of emotions she was experiencing, and she too was able to do the same. Needless to say, the man paused for a moment, shocked at being threatened by the little one, much less in a language he understood. He didn't stay that way for long, however, as in the next instant an aura sphere, deep red in color, was sent crashing into him, flinging him back and causing him to hit his head hard, falling unconscious instantly. Another sphere of the same color sent the pack of Linoone flying._

The man's comrades instinctively reached into their pockets, where they most likely had emergency weapons stored for cases like this. But they were too slow, and nothing could have prepared them for what happened next. 

_Blue aura swirled about them, crawling up their bodies to their necks and forming a sort of cocoon about them. Then, as if struck by a match, it burst into a fiery orange color. It wasn't real fire, of course, but it set their bodies into such pain as they had never felt before. Not only that, but it was choking them. Their own aura was being set against them, and they were sure they would die by it._

"_Talu! No!"_

The shout had come from Esho, who had given one last effort to prevent his friend from doing something she would regret before passing out. The men would probably have thanked them if they had understood, because at that point Talu snapped out of her trance-like state and released them, letting them each collapse to the ground, too exhausted and in too much pain to do anything.

_She ran over to Esho and wrapped her arms about her fallen friend, pressing an ear against his chest. He was still alive, but only barely. Tears streaked down her cheeks and fell upon his soft fur as she tried to apologized, but her words fell on deaf ears. He would not wake up until hours later, and by that time any regrets of the moment would be swept away by worry for the one who had helped her all this time._

* * *

Talu stood up from the tree she was leaning against and wiped a tear from her eye. The memories had come back once again. They always came back, no matter how much she wished they would leave her alone. It had been an entire month since the accident, and she still couldn't put it out of her mind, despite all she had accomplished since then. She had even found a teacher to help her learn to control her aura powers.

_It's time to go see Esho again…_

She turned and set off in an Eastern direction, knowing exactly where she was going. She had traveled that way many times before.

* * *

Some time not long after, she came upon the tree she was looking for. It was an old Oran Berry tree, and amongst its roots was a slab of rock that looked entirely inconspicuous. She knew otherwise though. Pressing her shoulder up against one side, she gave a mighty heave and began slowly pushing it aside.

It took her nearly a minute but she managed to move the rock enough that she could peer past it down into the small hollow beneath the tree. It was large enough for her to stoop down and crawl into, and it opened up a little ways in.

As she came out into the main section of the hollow, she was greeted by a familiar voice, along with the sight of her friend laid out in the corner.

"Hello, Talu. It's good to see you again."

The hollow was lit by a moon stone set in the center, and she could clearly see the Furret smiling up at her, his furry body curled up into a ball. He had probably been asleep recently.

It was an odd thing using a moon stone for light. It had been hard to find but it worked wonders. Whenever it went out, which was rare, they would just leave it out in the moonlight and it would regain its glow soon after.

"Nice to see you, too, Esho. How's the scar?"

"Barely noticeable compared to last time. It still keeps me from moving around proper, though."

Walking over to where he was laying in the corner, Talu sat down next to him. "Well, I'm glad to hear that you're doing better." Looking down, she saw that he was right. The scar from the wound was barely noticeable, having started to finally regain some of the fur that had been lost in the area. She had made sure to come here every day since the accident, tending to her friend and fetching him food. "Say, have you eaten yet today?"

The Furret shook his head. "No, the last batch of berries you brought me ran out yesterday."

"Well then, tell you what, before I'll leave I'll go out and see if I can't find some Pecha berries. I saw a bunch of them the other day during one of my runs with the old man."

Esho smiled and flicked his tail happily. He was rather fond of Pecha berries, although he had never known why, and he appreciated everything his friend did for him. "That would be wonderful. Speaking of which, how is your training going?"

Talu sighed. She didn't really feel like talking about it, but she knew that since he had asked she wouldn't be able to just leave without telling him what had happened, so she agreed to discuss it. She started with some events several days ago, and the conversation went on, each telling the other how they had been, until it came to Talu's training on the current day.

"I…I got mad at him for telling me I was only focusing on my desire for revenge. I…hit him with an Aura Sphere before I left. It wasn't a large one, though."

It was Esho's turn to sigh. Talu had always been rather brash when it came to being critiqued on how she did things. "Talu…if you're going to expect him to help you, you can't keep doing things like that. And besides, I hate to say it, but you do get out of hand sometimes."

Talu knew he was right, but she didn't want to admit it. "I…I know, but it frustrates me so much when he tells me to calm down!"

"Well, what are you going to do now?"

"I guess I'm going to go apologize."

Esho grinned. He had finally gotten proof of his point. "Now that's what he was getting at. You're a nice person, so try to focus a little more on that."

Talu gave a small smile. "Okay…I guess you're right. I'll be leaving now." She began to stand up but paused.

Esho looked worriedly up at her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," was her response. "I was just thinking." Leaning over, she gave him a quick affectionate kiss on the cheek, to which he blushed deeply, his magenta fur turning an even deeper shade. With that she left, making sure to shove the rock slab back into its place over the entrance.

* * *

Talu approached the Lucario, who was leaning up against a tree, much as she had been. She said nothing, expecting that soon enough he would say something to initiate conversation.

True to her words, the elder spoke. "So you've returned."

Talu nodded. "M…master, I just wanted to say…I'm sorry for how I acted earlier."

The Lucario looked up at the sky. After a moment he closed his eyes and gave a soft whistle that rang out through the area. Talu listened as it faded away into nothingness, not knowing what to think. Then he spoke to her once more, and she snapped to attention immediately.

"So, how is he doing," is what he said.

Talu was confused. She hadn't been expected a question like that. A rebuttal, a recommendation on what to do later, or even a dismissal, but a friendly question was not something she had expected. "What? How is who?"

"Esho, of course. How is he doing? Has he gotten any better?"

Talu paused before responding. "He's fine, and after a week or two more might even be able to move again. How did you know about him, though? I've never told you…"

She was cut off as he began speaking over her. "I told you before, Riolu have high levels of aura, and yours is high even for that. It flows through you, and in it I can see visions of every experience that you have on your mind. If you would listen to me I could teach you to do the same. Tell me, do you know why I agreed to teach you?"

Talu shook her head in response.

"It's because you have great potential. How old were you when you first used an Aura Sphere attack?"

Talu thought back. Her first Aura Sphere had been back before her parents had been chased away by the men in the strange clothes. "Only a few moons, I guess."

"Well," he began, "Most Riolu can't even control their own aura that well until they evolve into Lucario, and yet less than a month ago, you sent two men into comas using _their_ aura!"


End file.
